Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Your Production run is scheduled in order to meet your customers delivery date only to realize that there is shortage of an electronic component ! You desperatly need 200 pieces of Qualcomm part 'Q4401I-1S1'.After calling every known major distributor, you find out that there is a 16 week leadtime (or worse, the part is discontinued), the purchaser seeks any avenue they can.Search engines such as Google are used to help locate any source that might help. The search for electronic component 'Q4401I-1S1' yeilds 178 results.The purchaser frantically sends e-mails out to every Google result found for 'Q4401I-1S1' in the hope to have someone reply with a favorable offer.What happens next can be catastrophic! Say 14 sources have been requested to supply this item.It is common knowledge that brokers advertising this part can source the part however, the part is located at only 1 maybe 2 vendors who physically have the part. Now 14 sources are all calling these 2 vendors for quotes and the battle begins. For starters, the vendor posessing the part may 'jack up' the price because of the increase in demand. Also as a purchaser you now have to contend with many quotes coming in and not knowing which vendors will reply or not. The time to buy is crucial as you want to supply your production line but at what cost ? Do you buy from the first offer as he may be more likely to supply the part or go with the vendor who gave you the best price? Who is more reliable? What are the terms of sale? How soon can either vendor supply the part? Could I have bought the parts directly at the source? Who is the source?The point I am making here is that it is not always a good idea to multi shop in parallel.What the purchaser needs to do is call Canics (or go online at www.canics.com) for our quick quote (typically same or next day). You can rest assured that the quote you get will be a competitive one. Once you have a quote you can then seek 1 or 2 more sources to compare to. This way the 'heating of price' is avoided and you do not need to contend with multiple offers (real or not) and you can rest assured that your production run will not be jeopardized.

At Canics we receive hundreds or RFQs (requests for quotes) worldwide and we supply quality components to hundreds of customers. Canics is member of the ERAI and the Better Business Bureau which provides you the assurance that you will be served in a professional and courteous manner.